Yes, I think if I'd come to it expecting historical fantasy I wouldn't have been bugged by the inventions and modern attitudes assigned to historical characters, but it was recced to me somewhere (Ravelry, I think) as historical fiction and I wasn't aware of Griffiths as an sf author so never really thought of it as anything else.

I might try her others, though - I loved the writing, and I don't think I'd have been that bothered by the pacing if the other things hadn't been there, although I was definitely expecting a standalone and not a first volume of 2/3.